Many persimmon growers in Mae Chaem district of Chiang Mai have decided not to harvest their fruit, allowing it to fall to the ground and rot in their orchards because picking it is no longer cost-effective.
The growers are complaining that farm-gate prices in the district have fallen to an exceptionally low level of just five baht per kilogramme. Some said they had left tonnes of fruit to rot because it did not meet the required quality standards.
One of the growers, Sombat Sermpanyakul, said he had planted several hundred persimmon trees in his orchard in Mae Chaem and the fruit was now ready for harvest.
He said he had decided to let the fruit rot rather than harvest it for sale because the farm-gate price would not even cover transportation and other costs.
Ratchada Saensuk-udomboon, a fruit trader, said orders from cities, particularly Bangkok, were lower than last year, affecting farm-gate prices.
She said she was making only about one baht per kilogramme in profit on persimmons.
Wattana Songpornpaisan, who represents large persimmon orchard owners in Mae Chaem, said farm-gate prices had been falling steadily over the past several years and the situation was worse this year, partly because the fruit could no longer be exported to Cambodia, which used to be a major market for Thai persimmons.
Mae Chaem is Thailand’s largest persimmon-growing area, producing about 5,000 tonnes a year from approximately 800 hectares of orchards.
Wattana said persimmons used to fetch 15-30 baht per kilogramme, providing sufficient income for growers who had previously relied on slash-and-burn cultivation.
He claimed that some growers had started cutting down their persimmon trees and replacing them with other fruit trees that could fetch higher prices.
